Mom of girl shot on Fla. school bus seeks answers

MIAMI 
Family members of a 13-year-old Florida girl fatally shot while riding a school bus with her younger sister say they forgive the boy who allegedly did it, but the victim's mother insisted Wednesday that he also "has to pay for what he did."

A 15-year-old boy was charged with manslaughter after police say he took a gun out of a backpack and showed it to other students during the ride to school Tuesday. Investigators say he fired it once in an apparent accident, striking Lourdes Guzman.

The girl, known as Jina to her family and friends and identified as Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus on her Facebook page, died later at a Miami hospital.

"How did it happen? How did he have it on him? How did nobody notice?" asked the girl's mother, who identifies herself on Facebook as Ady DeJesus. "I want answers myself."

DeJesus said her daughter wanted to be a lawyer, was responsible, and was good at school.

The boy was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon. He waived his right to appear in court Wednesday morning and will remain in a juvenile detention center. The Associated Press generally does not identify juvenile offenders.

Messages left with juvenile division officials and the alleged shooter's mother were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Police have not released additional information about the shooting. Miami-Dade Police spokeswoman Aida Fina-Milan said that based on the charges "it appears to have been an accident."

Eight other children, including Guzman's 7-year-old sister, were on the bus but were not harmed. Authorities took the children and the bus driver to a police station to be interviewed. The bus was not equipped with video surveillance equipment.

DeJesus said her 7-year-old daughter called her after the shooting.

"She just started screaming. And, then the bus driver started talking to me," DeJesus said.

Tuesday, the family issued a statement by the victim's mother describing the girl as "fun-loving, helpful, a happy girl."

"Feels like just yesterday I saw her running around in her Pamper, dancing and modeling for the camera," the mother said. "Times and moments spent with Jina are memories I will cherish and keep in my heart forever."

The teen suspect attended Somerset Academy, said Lynn Norman-Teck, a spokeswoman for the Florida Consortium of Public Charter Schools.

Norman-Teck said all three schools made grief counselors available to students.

The school bus was operated by Yelimar & Portieles. There are no records of the company with the state's Division of Corporations or the Better Business Bureau, and telephone messages left with a number listed on the side of the bus in which the shooting happened were not returned.

Parents of students at the charter schools contract the private school bus to transport students.

Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm, said one area of school-bus safety that is weak in schools across the nation is driver training on behavior management and crisis intervention.

"The drivers have one of the toughest jobs in education and they do it with the least amount of support," Trump said.

The vast majority of bus drivers do not receive training on building relationships with students and averting a crisis, he said.

"In general across the country they are grossly undertrained and under-supported in these areas," he said. "It's the exception, not the norm, to see that training in place."

The Florida Department of Education has state requirements to become a school bus driver, including a criminal background check, drug screening and 40 hours of pre-service training. There is no requirement specified on training for managing students who misbehave or act violently on a bus.